“The Agathyrses” (Scythians), says Herodotus, “are the most delicate of men; their ornaments are chiefly of gold. They have their women in common in order that they may all be brothers, and that, being so nearly related, they may feel neither hatred nor envy against each other.”[68] In another passage Herodotus says of the Massagetes (Scythians), “Each man marries a wife, but they use them all in common.” The assertion is grossly contradictory, and can only relate to the extremely loose manners of the unmarried women. As a matter of fact, amongst many savage or barbarous peoples chastity is not imposed on the women, as long as they have no proprietors. “When one of them desires a woman,” continues Herodotus, “he suspends his quiver in front of his chariot, and tranquilly unites with her.”[69] This is merely a trait of very free manners, which may be placed by the side of many others, proving that modesty has been slow of growth in the human brain. The Tahitians were still more cynical than the Massagetes. Herodotus himself speaks of black Indians (Tamils) “who coupled as publicly as beasts” (iii. 101), and V. Jacquemont has related that Runjeet Singh would ride with one of his wives on the back of an elephant and take his pleasure publicly with his companion, careless of censure (V. Jacquemont, _Corres._, 16th March 1831). It would be very easy, by searching into ethnography, to accumulate facts of this kind; but for the moment I have only to continue my examination of old Greco-Roman texts relating more or less to promiscuity. I therefore return to them. Herodotus again relates, in speaking of the Anses, an Ethiopian tribe: “Their women are common; they do not live with them, but couple after the manner of beasts. When a vigorous child is born to a woman, all the men go to see it at the third month, and he whom it most resembles acknowledges it for his.”[70] And here we have Pliny saying also of the Garamantes: _Garamantes matrimoniorum exsortes, passim cum feminis degunt_.[71] Strabo, too, affirms of the Celtic population of Ierne (Ireland), “the men have public commerce with all kinds of women, even with their mothers and sisters.”[72]